What happened to James has happened to many. Was the domain listed for sale ? (not necessarily in auction, just as an O/C-O or BIN) if so, by viewing it you inadvertently increased the number of views, sometimes you see the details, may come back to that page or something, that may even count as two more views, that number may matter to some browsing the site, although it's the # of bids on a name which makes the difference since the ones with the most then get listed in "Most Active Auctions" and then the price can rise fast...
The fact someone regged it just minutes after your viewing it might be just a fluke, but I've heard of registrars that advertise domains as available (or the system makes "suggestions") based on others' previous searches, they don't have to do it blatantly, ie they may add ItsEasyforMe.com to the alternative results of another search if that searched term was a regged domain, ie if someone searched for domains available (unregged or for sale) using the kw "easy" then the domain James wanted may have been added to the alternate/suggested results in any "easy" searches when it wasn't there before. The registrant added privacy, interesting, I agree this name may normally not be seen as premium but it's still a nice catchy phrase containing the word 'easy'...
As for those much talked about Go Daddy reps, they may not be allowed to make bids/offers on names listed on GD but they have cousins, neighbors and girlfriends. Even dogs lol. It's most elemental to set up other accts since they know how to cover their tracks, they can simply do it thru someone else, the acct owner may even be in another state as to not raise suspicions (same IP address as their own place would be a red flag) ....Midnight251 had a great suggestion, we should test that. And I agree with INFORG, it absolutely happens with registrars, NetSol was once criticized in an article I read for using others' random searches as "suggestions". Privileged inside info can make you real big bucks in ANY space lol.... JuniperPark also had a good idea, do it and see if he answers and from which address (since he added privacy) and I've never seen what Katherine mentioned but any registrars doing that would at least be honest about it ...
